


summer seas

by appleeater



Series: the golden age [4]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Arthurian, Developing Relationship, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:48:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23480464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/appleeater/pseuds/appleeater
Summary: “She can’t leave well enough alone,” Eponine mutters. “She always has to push it.”
Relationships: Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy, Cosette Fauchelevent/Marius Pontmercy/Éponine Thénardier, Cosette Fauchelevent/Éponine Thénardier, Marius Pontmercy/Éponine Thénardier
Series: the golden age [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1117404
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	summer seas

When Cosette leaves from the May Day festival she and Eponine aren’t speaking. It’s clearly not just a casual argument because Eponine doesn’t turn out in the morning to see Cosette off. 

Marius has been doing his best to keep from getting in between the two of them, whether they’re arguing or flirting. It had been much easier to do when they’d been in different places and everything had been conducted through correspondence. He and Eponine had, by silent agreement, decided not to talk about the letters, though Marius’ letters usually contain the phrase “Eponine says” and he has to imagine Eponine’s contain “Marius says” just as often because Cosette had been at pains to assure him that she loved them both equally. Cosette and he had talked about it after Marius realized that the looks between her and Eponine were heavy with something more than childhood nostalgia, and many more times after that. 

“She’ll come around,” Marius says to Cosette, though he has no idea what they’re arguing about

Cosette’s eyes are red rimmed. She hasn’t been weeping, which turns her adorably blotchy, but she’s obviously upset. “I know,” she says. There’s a stubborn quality to the way she says it, as though she’ll make it so, if Eponine doesn’t oblige. “I just wish—” she says, and stops. 

“Tell me,” he says, touching her cheek, partially to comfort her and partially because he won’t get the opportunity to touch her for some time. 

“I wish I didn’t have to go,” she says, quietly, looking down.

Marius’ stomach does a guilty flip. He knows Cosette doesn’t blame him, but he also knows that she doesn’t understand why he hasn’t asked her to marry him yet. She’s never asked but he’s caught the questioning glances after Courfeyrac or Grantaire or someone else has cracked a joke about them still not being married after Marius had talked about it so much last year. He hasn’t had the courage to explain. He still doesn’t. 

“We’ll see each other soon,” he promises, because he’s made Enjolras swear to allow Marius some time off to visit Montreuil-sur-Mer before winter. “And I’ll bring Eponine.”

This is a rasher promise, but it makes Cosette look up at him with a tremulous smile, so it’s worth making it. He tears his eyes away to look over her shoulder. Sir Javert looks impatient to leave but Marius is more concerned with Valjean, who is regarding his daughter with a furrowed brow. 

Valjean had asked, pulling Marius aside on the second day of their visit. 

“You haven’t asked for my daughter’s hand.”

Valjean’s gaze was hard in a way that took Marius back to a year ago when Valjean had disapproved of him. He might be a genial, generous man but he is also a powerful witch and very protective of his daughter. His eyes reminded Marius of that.

“I plan to, sir.”

“When?”

“When she asks me to.” It was a half-truth. 

Valjean smiled at that and Marius had relaxed a little. 

“Is it a concern of money? Because you know—”

Marius does know. He would have to be a fool not to, even if Cosette hadn’t told him. Valjean is very rich and very fond of his daughter. It’s no surprise that Cosette’s dowry is enormous.

“My income here is enough to support us. But it’s true that her dowry will help keep her in the style she’s accustomed to. I have nothing else.”

“Your family disowned you.”

“It was a mutual disowning,” Marius said stiffly. 

“And you have no contact with them?”

Marius' grandfather had stood against Enjolras and, though he’d escaped a treason charge, he had never reconciled himself to the new regime. He lives in a country estate, far from the castle. Marius occasionally receives word from his aunt that the old man is alive and that is all. 

“No. There is no hope for reconciliation.” 

Valjean had looked sympathetic, instead of disapproving. “I am sorry to hear that.” 

That had been the end of the conversation because Valjean hadn’t thought to, or hadn’t known to, ask about Eponine. Marius’ family was a sore subject. Eponine had the potential to be an explosive one. 

He’s not sure how much anyone has caught onto the two of them. He hasn’t heard a single joke made about Cosette and Eponine despite the fact that they’ve been seen all around the castle together. He’s not sure if that’s because no one knows either of them well enough to see what’s happening or because they’re trying to spare his feelings by keeping the rumors from him. If that’s the case, he’s not sure if he’s grateful to be spared. 

“Your father is waiting,” Marius tells Cosette, kissing her forehead. He wants to kiss her mouth but he’s pushing his luck as it is. It would be acceptable if they were formally betrothed but they aren’t. 

“I love you,” Cosette says, eyes searching. 

He doesn’t know what she’s looking for, but he has an honest and easy response to that at least. “I love you too.” 

\--

Later, he goes to Eponine’s room, only half expecting to find her there, surprised when she calls out at his knock. 

She doesn’t look surprised to see him, and she looks ready to fight. 

Marius carefully sets down the plate of food he’d brought. Eponine doesn’t even look at it. She keeps her eyes fixed on Marius in an unwavering glare from her position leaning against the wall next to her window. He wonders what she was doing before he knocked. He hopes that she doesn’t sit around in a defensive posture, even when alone.

“What do you want?”

Marius gestures to the food. “You missed breakfast.”

She looks at the food disinterestedly and then glares at him, as though it’s unacceptable for him to suggest she might be weak enough to feel hunger. He knows she does. He knows she feels it worse than other people might because she’s been truly hungry in her life. He pushes the plate across the table, closer to her. She could get to it easily now if she wanted to. 

She huffs and doesn’t reach for it. 

“She’s not here to see you waste away dramatically,” Marius points out. 

Eponine’s eyes narrow. “I’m not hungry.”

“Sure,” Marius agrees. He looks out the window, though he knows that Eponine’s window doesn’t overlook the main courtyard and never has. She didn’t even watch Cosette leave. 

“If you’re here to pass along a message—”

“I’m not,” Marius says. “I won’t play go-between.” The words come out with more weight than he intends. 

“Oh, is that where you draw the line?” she drawls, the tone more a wound than her words. 

“It is,” he says, though he’s never certain these days where the lines are. “You two can fight your own fights.” And do, he adds silently. 

Cosette had been at the castle for only six days, spending plenty of time alone with Marius, and she and Eponine had still found the time to have at least three separate fights that Marius knew about. He’s of the opinion that they must enjoy it on some level. Cosette, who lives with a saint and has no siblings, has never had much chance to casually argue and Marius isn’t the argumentative type. Eponine could, and does, pick a fight whenever she sees an opportunity to. Still, there’s a difference between bickering and the type of fights that hurt. This one has clearly hurt them both. 

They stand in silence, almost companionably, when Eponine surprises him by speaking. 

“She can’t leave well enough alone,” Eponine mutters. “She always has to push it.”

Marius has, in his less charitable moments had the same exact thought. It’s one of the best parts of being friends with Eponine, that she’ll say the harsh things out loud for him. 

Eponine’s gaze swings to him. Her eyes are dark, intense, maybe a little frightened, which for Eponine usually translates into anger. “Did she tell you what we were fighting about?” 

“No,” he says, glad it’s the honest answer. “What the two of you have is seperate. I don’t want to interfere where I’m not wanted.”

Eponine laughs, a sharp unfriendly crack of sound. She looks away. “Yes, I know.”

He’s never asked Eponine about any of her other lovers. She’s always been private, and just because Cosette is his as well doesn’t mean he has a right. But Eponine looks bitter and isolated. Maybe he should have been interfering. Though how he was supposed to know that, Marius has no idea. 

“Am I wanted?” Marius asks Eponine, quietly.

She looks at him startled and he quickly adds, “Do you want me to interfere, I mean? You know I just want you both to be happy.”

A series of expressions flicker over her face, too fast to track. She has a subtle face. So does Cosette. Marius sometimes feels flayed open beside the two of them, obvious and vulnerable. 

“Do you?” she says, and it’s a challenge. 

“Of course,” he protests. He’s unsure of so many things, but that he is sure of. Maybe he’s not as obvious as he thinks he is. 

“You’re unreal,” she says, disbelievingly. “Aren’t you jealous?”

“Sometimes,” he says. It’s an honest answer, though it’s more complicated than Eponine probably knows. He’s jealous of more than just the two of them kissing and whatever else they get up to. He’s jealous of the way they banter, the way they spar with abandon, the way Eponine is around Cosette, a little starry-eyed, like she’d been around Marius when they were younger. 

“And?” she demands.

“And what? I’m jealous. I get over it. It’s fine.” He feels slightly lightheaded. He can’t fully believe they’re talking about this after months and months of avoiding the subject at all costs. It’s difficult to feel anything but shocked at the moment. 

“You don’t have to get over it,” she says to him, slowly, like he’s an idiot. “You can tell her no.”

“I don’t want to tell her no,” Marius says. He warily leans against the wall, next to Eponine. He’s still not fully sure she’s not going to lash out, but this conversation isn’t one he should be having with one foot out the door. “Do you want to tell her no?”

Eponine eyes him warily. She doesn’t want to admit it but he knows that she’s as incapable of denying Cosette as he is.

Marius takes pity on her. He owes her his life several times over, he can spare her a little embarrassment. “I mean it,” he says. “I’m happy if she’s happy.” I’m happy, he tries to tell her with his eyes, if _you’re_ happy. 

She drops her gaze. “It’s not the usual thing. People are going to talk.”

Marius laughs, a sudden burst of joy filling his chest. “Well,” he says, through the laughter, “it’s a good thing that you always do the usual thing.”

“I don’t,” she tells him, unsmiling. “But you do.”

“I rebelled against the old king, right alongside you,” Marius reminds her, but he’s unoffended. Eponine has always been more extraordinary than him and has always received less credit for it.

“Sure,” she says, rolling her eyes, but she’s smiling a little. 

“It can work,” he says, because he has to believe it can. Cosette’s happiness is essential to him and Eponine’s, he’s come to realize, no less so. “We just have to figure out the shape of it.”

“Cosette has a pretty good idea of the shape of it,” Eponine growls, face darkening. It’s clear this is the source of the argument, which surprises Marius, somehow. He didn’t think that they talked about him. 

“Oh?” he says, tentatively, not sure if he’s supposed to ask. 

To his surprise, Eponine blushes, something he’s pretty sure he hasn’t seen since they were teenagers, unless he counts the time he surprised her in the bath, which he really tries not to think about. Of course, he does think about it and between that thought, and Eponine’s embarrassment, he finds himself blushing as well, despite having no idea what’s flustered her. 

He clears his throat and, half to have something to say, asks, “Do you get jealous?”

She looks surprised and then wary. “Why?”

He hadn’t meant for it to be a trick question. “I don’t know. You asked me. I don’t see why my feelings matter less than yours. Cosette and I spent a long time talking about what I was comfortable with. I just—I’m sure you did the same. But, I don’t know, that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it.”

“You and Cosette don’t talk about me, then?” Eponine asks, her tone oddly hollow, as though she’s removed something vital from the words. He’s sure he’s made things worse by saying anything. 

“We don’t,” he assures her. He doesn’t want her to think that Cosette shares her secrets with him or that she and Eponine don’t have any privacy. Cosette has mentioned things offhand, once or twice, usually things that make him blush, but he never pries. It’s not his business, not really. 

Eponine snorts and looks away. She must not believe him. 

“Really,” he insists. 

“I believe you,” she says flatly. Her face in profile looks hard, like she's a sculpture, a remote hero from long ago. He wants to reach out and touch her to reassure himself that she’s still here and that they are still close enough that she’ll let him. But he’s not sure they are. 

“Is there anything at all I can do?”

The stony mask crumbles, just for second, but he can’t read her expression fast enough to tell what she’s feeling.

“No,” she says, and he’s sure it’s a lie. 

“Anything?” he asks again. 

When she looks at him, there’s no cracks. Her jaw is set firmly, she looks him directly in the eye. “No. There’s nothing you can do.”

Marius pushes himself off the wall. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.” 

Marius stops at the door and turns. “You know you have nothing to worry about. You’ll probably get a letter from her apologizing before she even gets back to Montreuil-sur-Mer.”

Eponine gives him a challenging look. “Why do you think she’s the one who needs to apologize?”

He can’t very well tell her that if she was the one in the wrong, she would be far angrier. Instead he says, “Just a feeling.”

He hears her snort behind him as he leaves. 

\--

Five days later, Marius receives a letter from Cosette. He doesn’t have time to read it before rushing off to a meeting with Enjolras, Combeferre, and Lord Sebastini.

Marius doesn’t typically get invited to these meetings. Usually the combined terror of Enjolras and Combeferre is enough to get any corrupt noble to buckle to their demands. But Marius has been tracking down proof of Sebastini’s smuggling for months now, and Combeferre had offered him the opportunity to charge the man himself.

Marius’ official job title is Record Keeper but he spends a lot more time hunting down information than he does recording any of it. He’s very good, it turns out, at hunting down information. Marius had been surprised to find that talent in himself, if not just because it was the first he had ever discovered. He had spent so much time struggling with a sword in his hand that it had been exhilarating to discover what could be done if he exchanged it for a quill. 

It’s not always dramatic work—he spends a lot of time uncovering tax evasion—but he’s also helped stop two minor rebellions and negotiated a peace treaty with the neighboring kingdom. It’s not what he’d dreamed of doing when he was a boy but it’s good to be useful and it’s good to be protecting things instead of tearing them down. 

It’s not a long meeting, but it’s eventful enough. Sebastini ends up confessing in the end and begging for his life. It’s not exactly enjoyable watching the man crumble in the face of the evidence, but there’s satisfaction in knowing he was right and that the crown will be a little bit safer now. 

Afterwards, he takes the long way to the training grounds, needing the air and needing the time to compose himself before venturing there. He knows he ought to be more comfortable on the training grounds. He’s spent enough hours there. But his knighthood is nominal these days, a title without land or soldiers attached to it, and now without a sword as well. His duties, if it ever comes to war again, will likely be carried out in meetings like the one he’s sat in all morning. He might well never have to kill anyone again. 

The relief he always feels at the thought makes him feel like a coward. 

Still it’s worth enduring the whoops, and backslapping, and the ribald jokes for the chance to see Eponine fight and he manages to arrive just in time to catch her in a sparring match with Feuilly. 

Feuilly, under the combined personal attentions of Bahorel and Eponine, has improved to the point where there’s plenty of talk about him being the third best knight in the kingdom. Though Marius doesn’t know him well, he thinks that Feuilly is unlikely to be satisfied with third best.

He certainly looks to be giving Eponine a good fight. Her hair is plastered to her forehead with sweat and her eyes are glowing with sheer joy. Feuilly looks much the same. 

“Come to watch the show, Sir Marius?” Bahorel asks. Marius is pretty sure that he doesn’t mean to place a mocking emphasis on the “Sir” but he wishes that Bahorel would just drop it all together. 

“It’s certainly a show,” Marius says. Because they really are something. Eponine is fast, famously so, and her bladework is subtle. Feuilly’s got the strength advantage, though, and he’s not slow on his feet either. He performs a feint that is right out of Eponine’s playbook, which Eponine parries with a bright smile that suggests Feuilly would have tricked a less savvy opponent. “How long have they been going?”

Bahorel shrugs. “Fifteen minutes, maybe? They’re going until one of them surrenders. And they’re both stubborn bastards,” he says with relish. 

“My bet’s on Eponine,” Marius says. He might not be a master swordsman but he’s trained with Eponine enough to have been on the end of her disarming strikes countless times. 

Bahorel whoops as Feuilly forces Eponine to stagger back with a mighty swing. She gains her footing quickly again and thrusts back in a vicious counterattack. Bahorel whoops again, just as joyfully. 

“Who are you rooting for, anyway?” Feuilly calls out, without looking away from Eponine. 

“Whoever’s winning,” Bahorel calls back. 

Feuilly doesn’t respond, too busy defending himself from Eponine, but he doesn’t look put out by his lover’s show of disloyalty. Of course, he might not be able to spare the attention to be put out. Eponine’s blade is moving so quickly that it appears almost as a blur. Feuilly is managing to parry, but only just. He executes a riposte, getting close enough to the gap in Eponine’s armor that Marius’ breath catches in his throat. 

But with that small triumph, Feuilly loses the match. He hesitates for a second after slipping through her guard and Eponine seizes the moment to thrust her blade forward so that the tip of it rests against Feuilly’s throat. 

It all happens in the space of a moment and the crowd takes another moment to absorb it before bursting into applause. It takes a moment more for Marius’ heart to start beating again. 

Eponine shakes Feuilly’s hand and they talk for a minute, the crowd too loud for Marius to hear the words. It’s clearly friendly though, because both of them flash their teeth in quick smiles before they saunter over to Bahorel and Marius. 

Marius’ presence attracts no reaction from Feuilly, but he catches a quick flicker of surprise on Eponine’s face, almost alarm, and he wonders if he’s not welcome here where she’s clearly at home and he so clearly is not. 

But the moment passes and Eponine turns to him and says, “Good, you’re here. Leave these two to canoodle and come help me with my armor.”

She tugs none-too-gently on Marius’ arm, pulling him towards the armory, away from Feuilly’s sputtering and Bahorel’s lecherous jokes. 

He’d been the one to always do this for her before her gender had been revealed, so it’s still an old habit to unbuckle this piece of armor and that, placing them in the right spots. They had been practicing in nearly full gear, probably part of Feuilly’s training. The ritual is almost soothing, at least until a bright streak of red is revealed as Eponine removes her chestplate. It’s clear that Feuilly’s blade managed to get through the crack in her armor after all. Through a slit in her shirt, a small wound is obvious. 

“Your shoulder,” Marius says. 

“It’s nothing,” she says dismissively, without looking at him, focused on removing her last gauntlet. 

“I’ll get Joly,” Marius says, because Eponine avoids medical attention as a matter of course but even she is unable to stand firm against Joly’s gentle insistence. 

But Joly isn’t there, with his soft hands and gentle eyes, to persuade Eponine of anything. She snorts. “It’s only a couple of stitches,” she says, stretching out her shoulder with a small wince. 

“Oh? And how are you going to stitch your own shoulder?”

“I’m not going to,” Eponine says, turning to him with a nasty smile. “You are.”

“Me?” He hasn’t stitched anything, let alone the skin of another person, since the war. Eponine has a scar on her left thigh from a nasty axe wound that Marius had hastily closed up with shaking hands and a lot of muttered prayer. He’d ended up covered in her blood and her scar had ended up crooked but she’d lived. Marius has no desire to relive anything close to the experience. 

He opens his mouth to suggest fetching someone else—anyone else—but he shuts it quickly when Eponine tosses her shirt over her head. 

She’s wearing a linen band and nothing else.Marius feels himself flush scarlet. 

“Come on,” she says, tossing the shirt over a chair. Then she laughs at his face. “You’ve seen me in less.”

He’s pretty sure she’s talking about the battlefield where they’d had to strip to tend wounds, quickly wash with a rag, or out of bloody clothes before passing out for a few precious hours of sleep. He’s pretty sure she’s talking about that and not about the time he had surprised her in the bath, because she’d never mentioned it since and he hadn’t been the only one embarrassed that day. 

All the same, Marius accepts that he’s not in a position to form an effective counterattack and goes to fetch supplies from the kit that the medics keep stocked. 

Eponine sits on a stool, apparently entirely at ease. The wound is still bleeding but not aggressively. Marius touches her shoulder without quite meaning to. She tenses.

“Sorry. Does it hurt?”

“Obviously,” she says, a little roughly. “So get it over with.”

“I,” he reminds her while threading the needle, “am doing you a favor.”

She hisses when he pierces her skin but she doesn’t tense up again.

He works as fast as he can. His hands are shaking, as he expected. Sometimes it feels like they haven’t stopped shaking since the war. But it’s only three stitches, and the line is straight enough. He feels better, seeing her whole again, and he takes a moment to look at Eponine. She’s so different from the last time he’d had to do something like this. Her body is no longer just a collection of bones and wiry muscle. She’s strong and healthy, there’s a shine to her hair and no sign of dirt anywhere. 

He spreads some honey on the wound, like they’ve been told to do. Looking at it, he feels the sudden startling urge to lean down and kiss the sticky wound. Cosette would, if she were here, he thinks a little deliriously. She probably will kiss it someday, after it’s healed, the small scar Marius has helped shape. 

He quickly removes his hand. “There,” he says, and his voice feels strange. “You’re done.”

His hands are still tacky with honey and he can’t think of anything to do but suck it off his fingers. It’s not until they’re in his mouth that he realizes that he has some of Eponine’s blood on them, the metallic taste only partly masked by the sweetness. 

He looks up and Eponine is looking at him—no, not at him. At his fingers. He withdraws them slowly, unsure if he should be embarrassed. Eponine doesn’t look mocking, her mouth slightly open, eyes wide. 

Then Marius remembers a crude joke Courfeyrac had once made about a lady’s honey. He flushes. Eponine doesn’t look away. He feels a moment, charged and electric, something he wasn’t expecting to feel in this moment with this woman. He feels faint. Things, he thinks, have definitely gotten a little confused. 

He clears his throat. “Um—did you get a letter?”

Eponine’s mouth shuts abruptly and she turns around so that he can’t see her face as she pulls her shirt back on. It catches on the honey, but he doesn’t say anything. 

“I did.” She turns back to him. “Did you?”

“Yes. I haven’t read it yet.”

Eponine looks at him, assesingly. 

“Have you read yours?”

“Yes.” She doesn’t elaborate. After a moment she walks past him to the door of the armory. “Thanks for the stitches.” 

\--

Before Eponine's shoulder has time to fully heal, she and five other knights have to ride out to quash a rebellion in the South. The threat isn't a serious one, just a "a hot-headed idiot who's clearly been spending too much time in the summer sun," according to Courfeyrac, but they're gone for over a week. Marius writes Cosette a letter every day they’re gone, never once mentioning the rebellion, but it makes him feel less alone. He's alerted to the return of the party when he stumbles across Courfeyrac and Combeferre locked in a heated embrace in the library. 

He must make some sound because they break apart. They look startled but not afraid, or—Marius notes Combeferre’s openly affectionate expression with surprise—embarrassed. 

"Marius," Courfeyrac cries out, launching himself from Combeferre into Marius' arms with as much enthusiasm but, thank god, less passion. Marius is prevented from hugging back because both his arms are pinned to his sides but he tilts his head to rest against Courfeyrac's. 

"How did it go? Is everyone fine?"

"Everyone is in tip-top shape," Courfeyrac says, not moving. "Well, our people."

"Good." He waits. "Any chance I can have my arms back?"

"Eventually."

Marius looks over his head to Combeferre who looks undisturbed by his lover's impression of clinging vine. 

"Let him go," Combeferre says, but it's a mild suggestion. "He probably wants to see Eponine, as well."

"Oh, she's fine," Courfeyrac says, dismissively, but he does pull away. "When isn't she?"

Marius, who doesn't want to spoil the happiness of his friends having returned safe and sound, determinedly does not think of all the times that Eponine has been very much not fine. "Did you just return?"

"Less than ten minutes ago," Courfeyrac confirms. 

He doesn't rush off to find Eponine, because she'd mock him for making a fuss and Courfeyrac promises she's fine. Still, he worries about her all day. Her stitches hadn't been healed when she'd had to ride out and there's a good chance that he's the only one that knows about them. It keeps him up and he burns his candle low writing a letter to Cosette. 

"She's home safe," he writes, hoping it's true. "Everyone is safe."

He's just signed his name to the letter when he hears noise across the hall that might be a feminine voice. Eponine’s room is far down the hall but Marius' rooms are across from Bahorel's. He opens his door, ready to shut it if he hears anything personal, a habit that he's picked up since Feuilly started visiting Bahorel's rooms a few months ago. He does hear Bahorel's laugh but then he definitely hears Eponine's voice. 

He wouldn't usually interrupt, but he can't fully be sure that Eponine is all right until he sees for himself. 

Neither Eponine nor Bahorel opens the door in response to his knock. Instead, Grantaire appears, beaming in drunken welcome. 

"Pontmercy! Such a surprise to see your charming face."

"May I join?" Marius asks, more to Bahorel who he can see over Grantaire's shoulder, sitting on his bed along with Feuilly. 

Marius is fairly certain that Bahorel doesn't like him most of the time, but it's quickly clear that everyone in the room has had a lot of wine and perhaps it's made Bahorel agreeable because he waves Marius in with unusual welcome.

Eponine is leaning against the wall in her habitual pose and betrays almost no sign of drunkenness. Only because Marius knows her well can he see the glitter in her eye and the slightly looser cast to her face. She also looks healthy, perfectly so, and she's leaning against her injured shoulder without any sign of pain. 

"Have a drink," she says, instead of a hello.

He accepts the offered glass without protest, which earns him a raised eyebrow. He's not much of a drinker, particularly when compared with the present company, but he's been on edge all day. The wine is strong, hardly watered down, but it's also good. Marius leans against the wall next to Eponine, tilting his head back, enjoying the wine, enjoying that Eponine is beside him, safe.

There's a moment of silence after he enters that hangs a little too long, and Marius is sure he's ruined everyone's fun, but then Bahorel launches into what is clearly the middle of a story. 

"He's barely off his horse when the most beautiful woman I've ever seen—"

Feuilly snorts, which earns him a disbelieving look from both Bahorel and Eponine. 

"Because you’re such a known connoisseur of beautiful women," Bahorel says to Feuilly, with an eye roll.

"She was beautiful," Eponine confirms to Marius. Eponine _is_ a known connoisseur of beautiful women and, in his opinion, has the best possible taste in women, so he nods in agreement, despite having no idea what they're talking about. 

"Who was this beautiful woman throwing herself at?" 

"Bousset," Bahorel exclaims, throwing his arms out.

"But I thought—"

"We all thought," Grantaire says, with a sly smile in Marius' direction that he's not sure he likes. He feels he's being set up to be the butt of a joke. 

"So there Bousset is, being embraced by a very beautiful woman," Bahorel pokes an indifferent Feuilly for emphasis at each word, "and then Joly comes out to the yard."

"What happened?" Marius is unable to stop himself from asking. 

Bahorel leans forward, "Joly walks up and starts embracing them both!"

"It wasn't anything obscene," Feuilly says, a necessary clarification given Bahorel's tone.

"But it was pretty obvious what was going on. You don't hold your friends like that."

"So all three of them—" Marius asks, taking a large sip of wine, hoping it will cover his blush. His virginity is notorious and he feels self-conscious about having to ask. Everyone in the room is more sexually experienced than him, most of them by a mile. 

But Bahorel seems just as surprised. "Yes! I couldn't believe it, so I asked."

"You didn't," Feuilly groans. 

"Of course I did. And you know what he said?"

"What?"

"He said, she's far too beautiful for just one man, so they offered her two."

Everyone bursts into laughter. 

"And that worked?" Grantaire demands, through a laugh, wiping at his eyes. "Bousset really can't call himself unlucky anymore."

It’s funny but Marius also feels flustered. He carefully doesn't look at Eponine, or at Grantaire, who, if his sly grin had been any indication, had some idea of what was going on between Eponine, Marius, and Cosette. 

To cover his embarrassment, Marius asks, "Did he manage to come back without any injuries?"

"Of course not," Eponine says, rolling her eyes. She doesn't look at all flustered, of course. 

"He got smacked in the face with a tree branch," Feuilly says, with slight astonishment, as though even now he can't believe that Bousset could be so clumsy.

“Needed three stitches in his cheek,” Bahorel says. “Good thing he’s got two lovers to kiss it better.” He laughs with such carefree amusement that Marius can’t help but smile, even if the joke isn’t all that funny. He sees Feuilly smile as well, though there’s a tenderness to it absent in Marius’.

He stays for another drink and then another, the wall becoming more and more necessary to keep him standing. He still doesn’t understand all the dirty jokes or tactical references but Grantaire and Bahorel only tease him a little before explaining. By the third glass of wine, he feels the friendliest he’s ever felt with any of them. Eponine is mostly quiet beside him, throwing in an occasional dark joke or scathing comment, but she remains within reach and Marius feels her presence and is comforted by it. 

Everyone else keeps drinking as well and, though they certainly have more tolerance than he does, they’ve also been at it for longer. Feuilly and Bahorel grow closer and closer together on the bed, Bahorel’s hand going to Feuilly’s thigh, Feuilly’s arm looping around Bahorel’s shoulder, their heads dipped closer and closer in laughter. 

“Bedtime, I think,” Eponine murmurs to him. He looks over to see her watching the couple with an amused indulgence that’s warm enough to surprise him. He wonders if Eponine has been a romantic this entire time. 

“Bedtime,” she repeats, this time accompanied by a not-so-gentle shove to his arm. He realizes he’s gotten a bit lost in thought. 

“Oh,” he says, glancing again at the couple. “Oh!”

She loops her arm through his and begins to drag him, completely unnecessarily, out the door. “Goodnight,” she calls over her shoulder. 

Grantaire blinks and slides off the bed, ungracefully stumbling to his feet. “Yes,” he says. “It’s getting late.”

Feuilly buries his head in Bahorel’s shoulder in embarrassment, but a corner of his smile is visible as they all troop out.

“They seem happy,” Marius says, leaning against the door to his room. He feels the wine acutely, but in a good way, feeling completely relaxed for once. “I’m glad.”

“You sap,” Eponine says, but the indulgent look is still there. 

“Hm,” Grantaire says, looking down the hall. “I’m off to bed.”

“Whose?” Eponine asks. From what Marius has heard of Grantaire’s sleeping habits, this is a legitimate question, not a dig. 

“Oh, I’m sure I’ll find somewhere,” Grantaire says absently, and wanders off, a slight sway in his step.

Marius thinks of his own chamber, full of the worries that he’s been pouring out all day. “Come spend more time with me,” he begs Eponine. “I don’t want to sleep just yet and it’s been ages since we’ve talked.”

Eponine laughs at him, but not unkindly. “Just for a short while. I had a long day, you know.”

It’s a concession to that day, perhaps, that she doesn’t sit in his chair or lean against his wall, but rather props herself up on his bed. He only hesitates a moment before joining her, feeling decidedly unequal to the task of sitting in a chair. It’s not like he and Eponine haven’t shared closer quarters. She doesn’t even blink at his decision, her head lolled back against the headboard, looking perfectly comfortable. 

“Was it bad?” he can’t help but ask. 

“We had no losses,” she reminds him. 

“I know. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t bad.”

She looks down at him, solemnly. “I’m not like you, Mar.”

“Soft, you mean.” It’s an accusation that gets leveled at him plenty. 

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“Isn’t it?”

“You’ve seen just as much bad shit as I have,” she says, and the war, ever present between them, flares to life, “but you didn’t let it make you hard. You still let it hurt you.”

“I don’t know that I had much of a choice,” he says, his body turning towards hers without his permission, as though seeking comfort. “I would like to be less soft.”

“I like you just as you are.” He looks up at her. Her eyes are still closed and she’s smiling faintly. 

“I like you just as you are, too,” he says, meaning it. 

Eponine started off brittle and he thinks she’s been getting softer every year, though no less strong, just more vulnerable where it matters. 

“You are happy?” he feels the need to ask. “Not just safe, but happy as well?” He reaches out and gently touches her. 

She tenses a little he anticipates her withdrawal, but she surprises him by leaning into his touch instead, his hand suddenly pressed fully against her arm. By instinct he closes it, encircling her upper arm in a light grip. Her arm is all muscle but it’s still slight. He can encircle the entire thing. He stares fascinated, until he remembers that he had asked Eponine a question. 

He looks up at her. Her eyes are open, staring straight at him. Her gaze is sure, but he can tell she’s drunk by the slight ruddiness of her nose and forehead and the way her hair is mussed on one side. 

“Are you?” He whispers it and is not sure why he does, other than that he can, they’re so close.

“Am I?” she doesn’t quite whisper back, but her voice is lowered. 

“Are you happy?”

“Oh.” Eponine smiles, her eyes warm, her teeth bright in her tanned face. She reminds him, heart stoppingly, of Cosette. Not because of how she looks, but because of how looking at her makes him feel. 

Marius doesn’t have a clear memory later, but he knows anyway that he was the one that moved forward. After all, Eponine had to have been smiling too widely to try and kiss him. She catches up quickly though, and though it’s still messy, it’s also good. It’s nothing like the one time they had kissed a decade ago, because he knows how to kiss with intent now and she’s letting him, and kissing him back. 

He slides a hand up her ribs and is startled by the feel of skin, no corset there like usual— 

He blinks at her and because he’s watching, he sees the exact moment that she registers who she’s been kissing and her face goes horrified and then blank. Before he can say anything, before he can even think of anything to say, she’s rolled off the bed and is out the door, shutting it behind her with a click.

\--

Dear Cosette, 

~~I made a mistake...~~  
~~I ruined everything...~~  
I don't know what to do. 

\--

"Are you and Eponine fighting?"

Marius should have known it was a trap when Courfeyrac invited him to his rooms. It's not that he and Courfeyrac never spend time together now that he has Combeferre, but there is certainly less of the aimless hanging about than had previously composed their relationship. And Courfeyrac's tone had been wheedling when he'd made the invitation, a clear sign of danger that Marius had been a fool to ignore. 

"Not fighting, exactly," Marius says, and then quickly adds, "I don't want to talk about it."

Courfeyrac looks torn, so Marius puts on his most forbidding face. 

“Fine,” Courfeyrac capitulates with a pout. “We’ll talk of other things.”

And they do—for almost thirty minutes, in fact. They talk about council meetings and Enjolras’ new haircut, which neither of them like. They talk about Combeferre. 

Marius is almost impressed, because the entire time it’s clear that Courfeyrac is gripped by a vibrating curiosity. After about half an hour, Marius can’t stand the pleading eyes any longer and sighs. “Fine. Go ahead. We can talk about it.”

“Can we?” Courfeyrac says with eager astonishment, as though he hasn’t silently been begging Marius for that very thing. 

“Some of it,” Marius amends. “It’s not all my business to speak of.”

“Of course,” Courfeyrac says soothingly, a false comfort. He will probably milk Marius for every last detail if he’s allowed. 

“I kissed Eponine,” Marius says. 

Courfeyrac’s face would have been amusing if Marius had been just a little less miserable. “You what?”

“Kissed her, and she hasn’t spoken to me since.”

“But what about Cosette?” Courfeyrac looks full of regret at the outburst, as though he’s said something unforgivable. 

“She won’t mind.”

Marius has not been worrying about Cosette. He has slowly been realizing that the only thing that Cosette is likely to mind about the situation is that she isn’t there to witness it. 

Courfeyrac looks dumbfounded and then stricken. “Marius,” he says gently, “she very well might.”

Marius hesitates because Cosette and Eponine’s relationship isn’t necessarily his business. But he’s also been realizing that it’s more his business than he had previously suspected, and, for all Courfeyrac loves to gossip, he’ll be discreet about something like this. 

He clears his throat. “It would be unlikely that she would mind, but if she did, she’d mind about both of us equally.”

Courfeyrac clearly does not follow. “Because Eponine is her friend, you mean?”

No,” Marius says, feeling almost light-headed with nerves. “Because she is not Cosette’s friend.”

“Oh?”

“In the same way _I_ am not Cosette’s friend.”

“Oh? Oh! Really?” Courfeyrac looks delighted, which is the reaction that Marius both expected and feared. Expected, because Courfeyrac has never been judgemental, and feared, because his delight can be an overwhelming thing.

“You’ll keep it secret, won’t you?”

“Of course!” Courfeyrac says instantly, then hesitates. “Combeferre—”

Marius is not keen on having Combeferre, far more judgemental than his partner, casting his sharp eyes over the situation, but he’s discreet and Marius wouldn’t want to put Courfeyrac in the position of lying to someone he loves. 

“Of course,” he says, “but there’s nothing much to tell.”

“Nothing much to tell! You and Cosette, and Cosette and Eponine, and now you and Eponine. That all seems—well, frankly, Marius you might be the luckiest dog I know!”

Marius glares at Courfeyrac, who has the grace to look embarrassed. 

“If that’s what you wanted, of course,” Courfeyrac says, hastily. “Uh, I suppose it isn’t what you want?”

Marius groans and buries his face once more. “It’s complicated.” 

“Ho-ho! And here’s to think that we all thought you might be the only non-deviant at court.” 

“You’re not a deviant,” Marius protests. And then, “Neither am I!”

“A very charming deviant,” Courfeyrac confirms. “You shall have to ask the king for permission to have two wives.”

Two wives, Marius snorts at the thought. Eponine has long proclaimed disinterest in being a wife and she would almost certainly prefer the title Sir to Lady.

“Eponine will kill you if she ever finds out you suggested any such thing.” 

There’s a knock on the door and both of them jump as it opens. But it’s just Combeferre who raises his eyebrows at their expressions of alarm. 

“We thought you might be Eponine,” Courfeyrac explains, relaxing instantly, “coming to murder us.”

Marius finds Combeferre equally as terrifying as Eponine, but he knows Courfeyrac will never understand that. 

“Have you done something that would attract her ire?” Combeferre inquires. “Because I’m not sure I would favor either of you in that fight.”

Courfeyrac looks unoffended at Combeferre’s assessment. “Well, I did suggest that she might like to marry Marius. But if she didn’t hear, I think we’re safe,” he says, to Marius’ intense humiliation.

Combeferre raises his eyebrows slightly and turns to Marius. “I can go if you like.” His tone is gentle and, as it’s far from his default, he’s clearly making an effort.

“Stay,” Marius says, clearing his throat. “I’ve already given Courfeyrac permission to tell you everything. And I have no doubt you’ll have better advice.”

It’s the right call. Even as Courfeyrac protests that his advice is golden, he is shining with happiness at the prospect of his best friend and his lover bonding. Marius gestures at him to fill Combeferre in, which Courfeyrac happily does.

“Cosette and Eponine are having an affair,” he says, rushing to add, “but one that Marius knows about and approves of.”

He looks to Marius for confirmation. Marius nods because this is one of the only facts that he is fully certain of. 

“And now,” Courfeyrac continues, “Eponine and Marius kissed, under circumstances I have yet to determine, and Marius is having a crisis over it, despite his conviction that Cosette will approve.”

Marius looks to Combeferre for a reaction and sees only mild surprise, which could mean that Combeferre is being polite by moderating his reaction or that he’s had some idea of what’s been going on this entire time, a humiliating but entirely plausible possibility. 

“Did you want to kiss her?” The question is gently probing, nothing more.

The answer is undeniable. “At the time.” In fact, it had felt nearly imperative. 

“Do you want to kiss her again?”

Marius is silent. He had kissed Eponine once before, a long time ago. 

He had caught her kissing a maid, who had startled at his presence and excused herself. Eponine hadn’t exactly been devastated, too busy laughing at him for blushing. He had blurted out some stupid question. “What is it like? Kissing, I mean.” She had still been laughing when she had offered to show him. It had been a chaste kiss. She had taken his face in her hands and kissed him, gently and close-mouthed. He remembers being surprised that any part of Eponine was so soft. 

“Then what on earth is the problem?” Courfeyrac exclaims after Marius’ silence stretches in a damningly long one.

“Eponine is my friend.”

It had been a less complicated thing to say ten years ago, when Eponine had been skinny and mean, with deep-set wary eyes and a tendency to react to any situation with a disproportionate amount of violence. Since then she has grown into a confident and undeniably attractive woman. He isn’t blind to that, but it doesn’t change anything that had come in the years before. It doesn’t change that he’d been ungrateful and uninterested when she’d followed him around with stars in her eyes or that he’d selfishly allowed her to follow him to the castle long ago so that he’d have someone to watch his back. In time, the stars had faded from her eyes, to be replaced by a warm and more genuine affection and she’d gone on to seduce plenty of willing maids. He’d thought that had been the end of it. A shut door. 

Combeferre and Courfeyrac look at each other and, though he can’t quite tell what passes between them, he can take a guess. 

“It’s not like the two of you,” he protests. “I haven’t been in love with Eponine these last fifteen years and not said anything for some incomprehensible reason.”

Courfeyrac laughs without reservation, although only a couple of months ago the unspoken secret caused a great deal of pain for them both. 

“And Eponine?” Combeferre asks. His tone is still gentle but it’s the same sort of probing question that has traitorous nobles spilling their secrets and scholars tripping all over themselves to find better solutions to tricky problems. “Does she feel the same?”

It would be easy to say no and to say it firmly. Her childish crush, born out of the least impressive kindnesses he’d ever performed, had faded long ago. How couldn’t it have? She hadn’t had much to dream of, back then, and she could have anything she wants now. All the same, he doesn’t know what’s been passed along in Cosette and Eponine’s conversations, not to mention their arguments. He can’t fully believe that Cosette would continue pushing an idea, however subtly, that Eponine had rejected. Then why had Eponine said nothing? The picture is becoming clearer but there are blank spots, questions he’d been too stupid to ask when he’d had the chance and so lacks the answers to now. 

“I don’t know,” he admits. “Not for certain.”

“You should talk to them,” Combeferre suggests. His face remains impassive even when Marius gives him a baleful look. “It’s really the only thing that can be done. Things would have been much easier for Courfeyrac and I if we’d had an honest conversation years ago.”

Combeferre sounds regretful about it but Marius thinks he’s underrating the curse. Marius wouldn’t mind being forced to talk about it. He dreads having to initiate any conversation. Eponine is most comfortable with life or death situations. A curse, she would understand, but not a heart-to-heart. 

“It’s at least a week between any letter I send to Cosette and a response,” he says, gloomily. “And Eponine won’t be caught in the same room with me.”

Marius still doesn’t regret his decision not to marry Cosette, particularly given how much more unsettled things are than he’d thought, but he regrets that his decision not to marry her has sent her so far away. 

“Well, write the letter now and if the problem isn’t resolved by the time you get a response then you’ll have that at least,” Courfeyrac suggests. 

“And then you’ll have to find a way to make Eponine speak to you,” Combeferre says. “If not just to return to your usual footing.”

Both Courfeyrac and Marius eye him warily. “Do you have an idea in mind?”

“Oh I don’t think it will be too difficult to think of something.”

\--

Marius insists that the location be somewhere that Eponine can easily escape if she wants to. He doesn’t want Eponine to feel trapped, particularly not with someone who has kissed her and who perhaps she didn’t want to be kissed by. Courfeyrac snorts as though it’s unthinkable that Eponine wouldn’t have wanted the kiss, but that’s his romantic soul and Marius won’t take any chances. 

They decide on one of the rooms in the old infirmary, which was built to accommodate wartime and is seldom used at full capacity. It’s out of the way, “so she can murder you in peace if she wants,” Courfeyrac suggests cheerfully, and the one they choose has two easy exits, not that he plans to bar her from either. Planning the simple trick feels alarmingly like a military campaign, but as Courfeyrac and Combeferre successfully helmed a war, he supposes he’s in good strategic hands, at least when it comes to getting Eponine into the same room. Neither of them offer advice about what to say, which he’s grateful for, particularly as he catches Courfeyrac swallow well-meaning words a couple of times. 

So Marius finds himself in a bare room, with absolutely nothing to distract him as he paces around it for half an hour, waiting for Courfeyrac to find Eponine and tell her that they need her help to hold down Bahorel while they place his shoulder back in its socket. It’s a plausible lie because she’d had to do it last year, when the medic hadn’t had the strength to do it himself. Courfeyrac has sent Feuilly out of the castle—he swears for an essential mission—and Eponine is the obvious second choice. 

He’s just sat down in the lone chair for the third time when he hears purposeful steps in the hall and he leaps up, his heart leaping with him. 

“So I hear you nearly knocked your arm right off again—” she says as she steps into the room. 

It takes a moment for her to absorb what she’s seeing but then she looks shocked, and then furious. “Cheap fucking trick, Pontmercy,” she says, and turns to storm out.

“Wait,” he pleads. “We can’t keep on like this forever.”

“Why not?” she says. “It’s easy enough to avoid you. It’s not like you’re ever on the training grounds.”

It’s a low blow, but he’d been prepared to deal with worse, so he shrugs it off. 

“It’s not that big a castle,” he says and then adds, a little wryly, “and we share a lover.”

He’s made a point, which she concedes by halting her progress and turning to face him. She doesn’t look happy about it, though, her legs set apart, ready for a fight. 

“Well?” she demands. 

Marius is good at languages and treaties. He can quote most of the Bible by heart. He’s quick to pick up words to the newest ballad. Those are other people’s words, though, and he has difficulty expressing himself in the moment. If he’s given time, he can write a lovely letter but conversations never give him that time. He feels that he often says the wrong thing. It would have been easier for him to write some grand speech expressing how he feels, but this isn’t really about him telling her anything. He wants to hear what she has to say. And so he is almost entirely unprepared. 

“I’ve been thinking a lot,” Marius starts off.

“And I’m sure you have everything figured out,” she says, nastily.

“How could I?” he demands, the sudden flare of temper surprising even him, “When you won’t talk to me.”

She looks startled for a second before the defensive anger sets in. He doesn’t care, he’s angry too. They’ve been expecting him to figure out everything on his own, to catch up without any help, and then resenting him for not being able to. 

“Cosette won’t talk to me either,” he continues. “Not really. Not about this.”

Eponine looks shifty.

“You asked her not to, didn’t you?” He’s pretty sure about that. 

“It was just a drunken mistake. Can we just forget about it?”

“No,” he says. “I can’t. Can you?”

She looks surprised and her body relaxes with it, as though it’s properly settling into the conversation. “No,” she says, slowly. “I suppose not.”

“What have you and she been talking about? You don’t have to tell me, but it seems a point of contention.” 

Eponine huffs a reluctant laugh out at that. “You could say that.”

“So?”

“She asked,” Eponine says, and it’s clearly such an effort for her to say it that Marius feels guilty. But they must talk about it. Too much has been unsaid and it’s been making things worse. 

“What exactly did she ask?”

Eponine looks as though she’s becoming enraged, she’s so embarrassed, but she answers all the same. “She asked for permission to approach you with the idea. All three of us. As equals.” The words are almost staccato, like she has to force them out. 

Marius is relieved because he had been right about Cosette and what she had wanted—the sum of her hints, her unfinished sentences, her pointed looks. He’d been stupid for a long time, he thinks. 

“And you told her not to ask me?” 

“It’s not her job to arbitrate between us. Particularly if we’re to be equals.” She sounds bitter. 

“And because you didn’t want me?” He suggests, tentatively. 

She looks positively outraged. “Of course I want you. What does that have to do with anything?”

He is stunned. She says it like it’s a fact of nature, simple and undeniable. 

“I didn’t know,” he chokes out.

“Everyone knows.” She sounds disgusted, though whether with him or with herself, he cannot say, though he’s sure that he deserves it. 

“Cosette?” 

“Everyone,” she repeats. 

“This whole time?” he asks, and his tone is small, because it’s one thing to have been stupid for a year and another to have been stupid for well over a decade. 

She doesn’t answer but a muscle in her jaw twitches, answer enough to someone who knows her well, and Marius knows her better than almost anyone. And he still hadn’t known. 

“Jesus,” he sinks into the chair. Eponine watches him, wary and angry. “I didn’t—”

“I know,” she says, and that’s clearly a fact of nature for her as well. 

He feels like the biggest ass in the world. 

“I thought it would be me and her and you and her and that would be fine,” he says, almost to himself. “I really thought it could be that simple.”

“But that’s not what Cosette wants,” Eponine sneers, though it’s not her best effort, her eyes more fearful than disdainful. “And you always do what she wants.”

“That’s not—” Marius realizes that he has no choice. The stakes are too high for him to be anything less than honest. “It’s what I want too, I think.”

Marius has had the misfortune to see Eponine get stabbed, shot, and clobbered. He’s never seen her look like she does now, pale-faced and frightened. 

“I’m sorry,” he says miserably. 

“Marius,” she says, and he’s almost relieved to hear the venom in her voice, “you can’t just say things like that.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “Please tell me I haven’t ruined everything.”

“Of course you haven’t ruined everything. But you have to mean things like that when you say them.”

“But I did mean it,” he says, blankly. 

Eponine blanches again. “You said you think.”

“What?”

“You said you wanted it, too, you _think_ ,” she says, spitting out the words. “That doesn’t exactly sound like certainty to me.”

“I’m not certain.” He feels like he’s missing a layer of skin, everything about this conversation flaying him a little deeper. “How can I be certain?”

“You’re certain of Cosette.”

“That’s Cosette,” he says, unthinkingly. He deserves the nasty look this earns him. It’s a reminder that he’s not the only one feeling vulnerable here. He tries to be more careful with his next words. 

“It’s different between me and her. How could it not be? You and I—there’s so much there.”

She still looks wary but less vicious, so something he meant by that jumble of words must have gotten through.

“You never wanted me before,” she says, and she sounds young.. Marius feels a realization slide into place.

He takes a moment to compose his answer, wanting to give this the care it deserves, the care she deserves. 

“You weren’t you before,” he says, “and I wasn’t me. And I’ve wanted you far longer than I’ve really allowed myself to notice.”

“You’re letting her talk you into this,” Eponine says, but her walls are still down and he knows she’s listening. 

“She makes me braver,” Marius says. “I couldn’t—I couldn’t even look at you like that before, Eponine. What if you had noticed me looking? What would you want with me?”

Eponine looks astonished. “You idiot,” she tells him fiercely. “If you had ever looked, all you would have seen was me looking right back.”

“Eponine,” he breathes out. He stands up and steps forward, carefully. She doesn’t flinch but her eyes are wary. He pauses and opens his arms. She looks even more wary. “Eponine,” he says again, more urgently. 

She cautiously steps forward and then abandons her caution throwing herself into his arms. He closes them around her and tries to hold her as tightly as she is holding him, though he doesn’t have her strength. 

“I’m sorry,” he tells her. “I’m sorry it took me so long. Forgive me.”

“You idiot,” she says, and she sounds wild. She’s shaking, a little, against him. He always forgets he’s so much taller than her, so much broader, for all her muscle. Holding her is the most terrifying thing he’s ever done. She’s more fragile than he could have ever imagined and he’s afraid of hurting her even more than he’s already done. 

“I love you,” he tells her and is startled that there’s a sob in the word, a sob that echoes through Eponine’s chest. They stand there, holding each other, shaking, half-crying. It’s nothing like the first time he told Cosette he loved her, in the gardens of her father’s house, tucking a flower behind her ear. But this is more Eponine, more him and Eponine. “I do love you. I do. I promise. I’m sorry.”

It could be five minutes before the two of them are composed enough to speak, or it could be twenty. 

“We are never talking about this,” she says, tilting her face up to his. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her mouth folded into a tight line. 

“We’ll have to,” Marius says, “at least once.”

“She knows everything,” Eponine says, looking away. “It doesn’t need to be said.”

“We have to talk about it, all the same,” he says. “There’s too much to figure out. I don’t want to hurt her.” Or you, he thinks, or myself. They should have been talking about this all along but he had lacked the imagination and she’d lacked the hope. 

Cosette it seems, had lacked neither. 

“There’s a letter,” Eponine says, looking a little irritated. 

“All right,” he says, not fully understanding. She’s once more blushing so hard that it’s making her angry. He’s surprised that she still has it in her, given that they’ve already had the most embarrassing conversation imaginable. Still, he feels himself begin to blush in sympathy. 

She looks furious at having to explain herself. “Cosette left it. In case—well, to give you and I permission. In case she wasn’t here. And if we wanted to—”

“Oh,” he says, understanding and feeling his own face light up as he discovers there is indeed a still more embarrassing conversation for them to have. “Do you want—?” 

She glares at him, like the answer is obvious and she can’t believe that he’s making her say it. “Do you?” she demands, not moving away.

Their closeness is still comforting, but it’s not only comforting. 

He swallows. “I do,” he admits. 

They stare at each other, still clutching each other, their faces inches apart. And they stay there. 

“Jesus,” she says, shaking her head, after the moment. “We know that both of us know how to do this.” Her voice is shaky under the bravado. 

“The two of us have even kissed before,” he agrees, with a faint smile. 

“You call that a kiss? Ha!” It’s less mean than it is teasing, which gives him the necessary courage to lean down and kiss her.

It’s different than that first time because he’s not kissing her with some excuse or the belief that it’s going to be just the one kiss, some kindness between friends. This is something else entirely. 

It starts out as chaste as their first kiss had been, all those years ago, but it’s no quick peck and slowly they melt together, the kisses slow but deep. It’s not at all what he thought kissing her would be like. It’s tender and simmering with a heat that warms him tip to toe. He holds her tighter and she clutches him back, her hands carding through his hair, with just a little more force than her kiss. 

She breaks away. “You couldn’t have gotten yourself together before Cosette left?” There’s a rough quality to her voice that makes him swallow. 

“What?” Eponine says, looking up at him, a challenge in her voice. “You disagree.”

“Not at all,” he tells her, because his dignity is ultimately less important than her feelings. “It’s just, I’m not sure I’m going to survive the two of you.”

To his wonderment, this causes Eponine to laugh, a real laugh, with no trace of mockery in it. Eponine often looks beautiful but rarely has she looked so pretty as she does in that moment. He kisses her cheek because he wants to be sure that he’s allowed, and when he discovers he is, he kisses her mouth again. 

“Your room is down the hall,” she says, after a long, long moment. 

He can do nothing but nod and follow her as tugs him, with no particular gentleness towards his room. 

The minute they shut the door, she pushes him against it and the kisses are wilder now, no teeth but firm, and her hands are everywhere. It gives him confidence to put his hands everywhere as well, feeling out of the muscles of her arms, the flare of her hips, the edge of her breast.

At the last, she firmly takes his hand in hers and guides it under her shirt. She’s not wearing anything beneath. He groans a little into her mouth, which is embarrassing, but the feel of her small but lovely breast in his hand is enough to make up for it, particularly when he experimentally rubs his thumb over her nipple and she gasps against his jaw, a hot puff of air more than a sound. He tries a little harder and earns a more stuttered gasp that leads into a slow, wet kiss, her hips pushing forward into his. 

“God, Ep,” he says, his other hand sliding under her shirt to spread across the smooth, warm skin of her back. 

She pulls back and tosses the shirt over her head and, almost defiantly, pulls down her trousers as well, standing in front him with absolutely nothing on. 

He’s never gotten a proper look at her, the few occasions that she’s been undressed in his presence being either terrifying or an accident, so he takes the time to look now, his heart pounding against his chest, his pulse making itself very known in another place as well. 

She’s slight, all muscle and bone, built with economy and purpose like a well-crafted weapon. Her skin is unevenly tanned, brown and golden in alternate patches. 

“You’re gorgeous,” he says, without entirely meaning to say it. 

“Take off your shirt,” is her only response, and there’s a bit of bravado there, still, and it heartens him that he’s not alone in being scared. 

He’s not muscular like the knights that parade around half-naked all the time, but Eponine must know that so he does as he’s told with only a second’s hesitation. Besides, it’s only fair. 

She eyes him up and down and though she says nothing, there’s an appreciative cast to her eye that warms him, and not just with embarrassment. 

“Your pants.” Her tone is so husky that he doesn’t even try to argue. 

She doesn’t bother with an appreciative look this time, which he is grateful for, particularly because instead she grabs a hold of him again, the embrace bringing every distracting inch of her in contact with him. She smells wonderful, musky but feminine. 

“Bed,” she says, between kisses. “Bed.”

He’s not really sure how he’s supposed to move away, from her and from this moment, but as always, Eponine is ready to shove him towards what he needs. 

He laughs as she pushes him towards the bed, half out of nerves, still, and half out of a giddy happiness. Her shove isn’t gentle but his landing is soft, sprawled on the bed. There’s no giggling, like Cosette would have done, but when he reaches out to pull Eponine to him and then underneath him, she comes easily, wearing a smug, feline look that he recognizes from when she’s landed a good joke or a well-executed hit. 

Their position, while it feels delightful to have her beneath him, her warm, compact body available for kissing and touching, begins to present some difficulties. 

He pulls back, propping himself on his elbows. She arches a quizzical brow at him, a little bit of her mask sliding back into place, like she’s worried she’ll change his mind, even now. 

“Cosette and I don’t—” he says, annoyed that he has the capacity to be embarrassed even now. “We don’t— because of the risk of children.”

“Oh,” she says, and then smirks. “Cosette and I don’t either.”

“Very helpful,” he tells her, with a gentle push at her leg, unable to be particularly annoyed with her sprawled out naked beneath him. 

She grins. “I don’t at all,” she tells him, with a reassuring pat to his flank. “Never cared for being fucked.”

He does his best to not look like he’s been hit over the head with a mace, which is how he feels. He clearly doesn’t succeed entirely, to judge by the way the curve of her mouth goes wicked with mockery. It’s an attractive look when she’s not being cruel, particularly when it’s the only thing that she’s wearing. 

“That’s probably for the best,” he says, clearing his throat. 

“Oh?”

“I don’t have much practice with fucking. I’m not too bad at the rest of it.”

“Oh?” There’s a challenge to it this time, an invitation for him to try and prove it. 

And Marius might only have experience with the one woman, but it’s been an increasingly diverse experience and Cosette is not shy about giving feedback.

He leans down and kisses the soft stretch of neck just under Eponine’s jaw and then tests a nibble. When it earns him a gasp, he brings the gentle bites lower and lower on her neck, alternating with soft, pulling kisses, until he reaches her shoulder and, with a quick kiss to her healed stitches, slides down. 

Her breasts are small but, judging by her earlier reaction, he thinks they’re sensitive. He mouths one nipple and then gently sucks. Her hands come up to his hair, one stroking down his nape. Her chest begins to rise and fall a little more quickly. He sucks a little harder. She gasps, quietly, but loud enough that he can hear. He moves his attention to her other breast, letting his thumb come up so that the first won’t feel his neglect. 

“Teeth,” she says after a moment. “Just a little.”

He obliges with a gentle scrape and her hips lift off the bed for a moment in a sinuous gyration that makes him feel very pleased with himself. 

After a very enjoyable minute or two, Marius feels confident enough to take his mouth lower, over her muscular abdomen, the slight softness of her belly with the lovely dip of her navel, lower still—

Her hand pulling at his hair stops him. He freezes in place, his neck strained by the effort it takes to meet her eyes. It’s worth it, because she looks young and a little frightened. He holds still and he holds her gaze, not a mean feat considering how much else of her is on display. It feels like an eternity before she nods jerkily, and says, “Okay.”

He doesn’t move. “Are you sure?”

She smiles. “Very.” And she looks it.

He smiles too and brings that smile between her legs. She gasps at the first contact and, if his mouth weren’t otherwise occupied, he would have done the same. It’s a monumental step, and at the same time, a simple one. He knows how to do this and he’s fairly certain he knows how to do this with Eponine in particular. 

Cosette and Marius have pointedly not talked about anything she and Eponine get up to but Marius would have had to be an idiot to not notice how Cosette had suddenly become more specific and articulate about her desires than she'd been before. Marius frankly had been happy to have the road map and had mostly ignored the warm glow that the idea had given him; that once again Eponine was helping him to success. He had been, he thinks looking back, an oblivious fool. 

Eponine’s not loud, but she says, “Yes,” loudly enough for him to hear, even between her thighs, and “right there” and then “harder”, which is feedback he can work with. 

When she finally comes, it’s with a shuddering gasp that he feels more than hears, and a clenching of her thighs that shuts the whole world out for him for a long, glorious moment. He keeps going but she shoves weakly at his head in clear protest. “Sensitive,” she explains, her color high and hair wild. He rests his head on her thigh so that he can look up at her. 

"Where did you learn how to do that?" she says, when she finally catches her breath. She sounds flatteringly awed. 

"You," Marius answers, with a helpless smile. "At least, partly, I'm pretty sure."

Her brow furrows for a second and then she laughs brightly as she pulls him up towards her for a kiss. 

"Not to dismiss your hard work," she says against his cheek, her hand slowly trailing down his stomach,"but you're so much better at that than sword fighting."

Marius summons all of his last remaining brainpower to say, "I enjoy it far more, too."

She flushes at that and her eyes go dark, dark, dark. He wonders if she’s still sensitive, but then ceases to wonder anything much at all. "Oh? I can see that.”

Her hand circles him, it’s grip firm and calloused in a very interesting way. He stutters out a moan and she twists her wrist with gentle deliberation. 

He doesn’t quite have the presence of mind to kiss her but he buries his head in her neck, her hair dark like Cosette’s but unmistakably Eponine’s, just as everything about this experience has been unmistakably Eponine. He can’t imagine what it will be like with the two of them together, everything multiplied. 

“God,” he chokes out, at the thought and at the sudden increase of the pace of Eponine’s hand, her thumb brushing across the head of his cock, her mouth a sudden hot presence on the side of his neck

“Come on,” she says, and there’s no challenge to it, her voice as gentle as her hand is relentless. “Let go.” 

He shudders through his orgasm and she strokes him through it, kissing his temple with a tenderness that is almost more overwhelming than her passion had been. 

He gasps, catching his breath, as the sweat cools between them. “God,” he says, almost reverently, and then pulls back with a last kiss to her neck, to look at her. 

The wary look is back and he kisses the slight crease in her forehead, hoping to smooth it. “A good first effort?” he offers, a little shyly. 

The crease does smooth away and her eyes crinkle in a smile, accompanied by a shy dip of her head that makes him want to kiss her again. 

“I can get Cosette’s letter,” she says. 

“Alright,” he agrees, less because he needs to see it right now, but because it’s clear that Eponine needs a moment of distance. She grabs her shirt off the ground as she stands, but leaves her pants off, and when she returns with the letter, she sits close, not quite touching him but close enough that he can reach out if he wants to. He does, and he puts a hand on her calf as he unfolds the letter with his other hand. The muscle tenses for a second but then she relaxes. 

Without asking, he begins to read it aloud. 

\--

Dear Marius, 

Firstly, I love you. Secondly, I love Eponine. Thirdly, I think if you do not already, you and Eponine are meant to love each other. Eponine thinks I’m naive to expect that sort of a happy ending, all three of us together, but I personally think I’m just more observant than either of you. I’ll be generous and put it down to a complicated history instead of natural stupidity. 

(Eponine is glaring at me as I write this letter, but she’s sworn by all sorts of knightly things that she won’t read it until you’ve had a chance to. Feel free to hand it to her after you’re finished, as long as you promise to describe her affronted faces in great detail to me.)

I apologize for not approaching you in person about the issue (though perhaps I will have to if this letter stays unopened) but I promised Eponine I wouldn’t, because she was right—this is between the two of you. 

I hope you _thoroughly_ enjoy your time together and I hope even more than I will be able to enjoy it with you soon. 

With all my love to the two of you, 

Cosette

\--

Marius looks up and takes time to memorize the details of Eponine’s affronted face for Cosette’s amusement. He won’t mention the embarrassment that’s there as well, but he will mention the fondness. 

“Stupidity,” she mutters, taking the letter from him. “Just because she hasn’t ever had to work for a damn thing—”

He yawns and she looks over at him, a hesitant expression taking over her face. 

“Would you like to stay? To sleep. Just for a little while.”

She looks shy, which is absurd given that she hadn't been nearly as shy when she was taking off her trousers. Marius loves her. He lets the idea wrap around him.

With the drugging effects of pleasure numbing the near-constant anxiety that he feels, Marius dares to lay down and reach out, lightly touching the scar on Eponine’s shoulder, a point of contact to keep him from drifting. She reaches up and places her small, rough hand on top of his. He allows his eyes to close. 

“I love you,” he says, and it’s much easier to say it than it has been to keep from saying it all this time. 

“That isn’t really an answer to the question,” she says, but he can hear amusement in her tone, as well as something much, much warmer. 

He yawns and falls deeply asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the incredible delay. Grad school has been kicking my ass and I had to rewrite this entire chapter a couple of times before it was what I wanted. Thanks for all the lovely encouraging comments!


End file.
